Angelina's Bachelors

by Brian O'Reilly

  It wasn’t enough.

  Angelina cubed, floured, and seared big hunks of chuck roast until they were perfectly caramelized on all sides. She had purposely had the smoke alarm removed from the kitchen for times like these, when the fat hit the pan. In no time, she had her braise going, dousing the beef in a bottle of burgundy, à la bourguignonne, another salute to Emmaline.

  Angelina was fired up now, pacing the kitchen. The Prima record was over, but she didn’t need it anymore. She started on the braided bread.

  Angelina pulled the dish towel off the bowl with the bread dough in it. It had risen and tripled in size. She pounded it down with whack after gratifying whack, then cut it into sections and began twisting and braiding. Braiding was one of the earliest skills she remembered learning from her mom, because she always had long hair as a girl. Soon, she had wrestled the dough into three immense braided loaves. When she was finished, the spectacular presentation was worthy of a Paris boulangerie. She would give the loaves some time to proof, then slip them into the oven just before dawn, when any self-respecting boulanger would.

  She made her aubergine napoleons, a beautifully layered dish of smoked mozzarella paired with a nutty, millet flour–coated, sautéed eggplant, finished lightly crispy on the outside and velvety smooth on the inside. She peeled her roasted peppers and laid them out with fresh balls of salty mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and a sprinkle of balsamic vinaigrette. She broke out a mixture of ground beef, veal, and pork for the rosemary and garlic meatballs, fried up in a cast-iron skillet and set swimming in her red-gravy cauldron.

  Frank was generally helpless in the kitchen, but for some reason he always insisted on helping her roll the meatballs. Then he’d brag that he’d made them when company arrived and sat down at the table.

  Angelina realized that for the rest of her life she would think of Frank every time she made meatballs, and she was surprised to find that, at least in that moment, she was glad of it.

  Next, baccalà marechiara, codfish with a sauce of tomatoes, capers, olives, garlic, and parsley, a lighter version of her puttanesca. She laid out fresh cod in a baking dish, ladled the marechiara sauce over it, and set it in the oven until the cod was cooked through and flaky. She would serve it on a platter over linguine dressed with the good olive oil and cracked black pepper.

  As the sun came up, she set out the fresh-baked bread, and its aroma enveloped the room. She’d made platters of salads, melon balls wrapped with prosciutto, a huge antipasto with cuts of cured meats, cheeses, and olives, and a fresh-fruit tray that exploded with color. She pulled the chicken out to rest, sampled the bourguignonne, set the lasagna to bubble and cool on the big table, stirred her soup and turned down the heat on it.

  For the next forty minutes, she plated. By the time her banquet table was complete forty-five minutes later, the display looked like a culinary fantasy worthy of a center spread for Bon Appétit.

  When she had finished the washing up, she stopped and took a long, last lingering look at what she had wrought. With a sigh, she wrapped herself in her trusty blanket, drank the end of her wine, and dropped into a peaceful and contented sleep on the sofa, with a smudge of flour on her cheek and the comforting fragrance of a night of good home cooking laced in her hair.

  For a single second, just before she slipped away, she felt like herself again.

  Angelina had finally fallen into a profoundly deep sleep, and she had been out no more than an hour when Mamma Gia and Tina came calling. Tina had celebrated her birthday quietly the night before with her parents and a few close friends, then picked Gia up this morning to go to mass. Now they’d come to see Angelina.

  Gia was resolved to help her daughter-in-law get back into the regular rhythms and routines of her life. Todays were more important than yesterdays; it just wasn’t practical to sit around thinking about the past all the time. The past was gone, like last week’s groceries.

  Gia found the back door unlocked and stepped into the kitchen with Tina following close behind. As the screen door softly clicked closed behind them, the stunning sight of the feast laid on the table stopped them both dead in their tracks. Tina gasped. Gia stood in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips.

  “Cos’e tutto questo?” she whispered. “What’s all this?”

  “Oh my gosh,” said Tina.

  They approached the table the way tourists approach a national monument, slowly, taking everything in.

  Gia took the lid off of the Tuscan cannellini soup and sniffed approvingly. “Smells pretty good.”

  “Are you kidding? It smells incredible in here,” said Tina.

  “Lasagna… melanzane… pappardelle… baccalà … this is a lot of food.”

  Tina leaned over the big wicker basket with the twisted bread in it. “Oh, my God. The bread’s still warm.”

  “Red gravy and meatballs … ,” Gia continued her checklist.

  “Look at that chicken. It’s beautiful. Who’s going to eat all of this?”

  “I don’t know. Where’s Angelina?”

  Tina pushed open the door to the dining room and peeked through. “Mamma Gia, look in here.”

  They looked in on Angelina, snoring peacefully, and quietly eased the kitchen door closed. Gia shrugged off her coat and rolled up her sleeves.

  “Come on, honey,” she said. “You and me are gonna put all of this food away. Then we’ll make some coffee and wait for Angelina to wake up.”

  By two o’clock, the three of them, Angelina, Tina, and Gia, were seated around the kitchen table. Gia was drinking her usual cup with three sugars and had just put a midday breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried bread, sausages, and broiled tomatoes on the table in front of Angelina and Tina. They dug in hungrily.

  “I’m starving,” said Angelina, a little guiltily, “I guess I worked up an appetite.”

  “I guess I have to come and cook for you every day so you don’t starve,” said Gia.

  Tina got the joke and laughed. “I’ve never seen so much food,” she said. “We could hardly close the refrigerator door. You must have been cooking all night.”

  Gia sat with them at the table. “What happened, you forget you’re not having a party anymore?”

  Angelina smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t sleep. I needed something to do and I had all of this food, so I just started cooking.”

  “You can’t read a magazine?” said Gia.

  “I guess I got carried away.”

  “Carried away?” said Gia. “They didn’t have this much food at the loaves and fishes.”

  “Aunt Angelina, what are you going to do with all of this food?” asked Tina. “It’s going to go bad.”

  Gia’s head came up with a start. “Don’t waste food!”

  She had spoken.

  “I don’t want to waste any food, Gia,” said Angelina, “but what should I do? Can you take some?”

  “I can take some home,” offered Tina.

  Gia pushed her coffee aside and rose to her feet. “We’re going to pass it out around the neighborhood. I’m going to take that big chicken down to little Mrs. Santaguida. That poor girl, she’s got five kids and a new baby.”

  “You want me to take the soup to the rectory?” Tina asked.

  “Good idea,” said Gia. “But put some in a jar for me to take home. That smells really good.”

  Angelina got up, opened the fridge, put her hands on her hips, and coolly appraised the tightly packed shelves, like a general scanning her battlefield before launching a major offensive.

  “Okay, finish up, girls,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Aubergine Napoleons

  * * *

  Serves 6 to 8

  INGREDIENTS

  2 one-pound eggplants (aubergines)

  Salt, to taste

  1 cup milk

  1 cup white-rice flour or all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon marjoram

  1 teaspoon dried basil

  ¼ teaspoon grou
nd black pepper plus a pinch for the dredging flour

  2 to 3 eggs beaten with 1 tablespoon water, approximately, as needed for egg wash

  1 cup millet flour or panko bread crumbs

  1 tablespoon dried rosemary, ground to a powder with a mortar and pestle

  ⅛ teaspoon salt

  6 to 8 portobello mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and bitter gills scraped away with the tip of a teaspoon

  1 cup olive oil (not extra-virgin), approximately, 2 to 3 tablespoons to oil the portobellos, 1 tablespoon to sauté the portobellos, 1 tablespoon to sauté the mushrooms, and 2 to 3 tablespoons to sauté each side of eggplant in 2 to 3 batches

  1 tablespoon butter

  2 shallot cloves, minced

  2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed and minced

  6 ounces (about 3 cups) large white mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and sliced into ¼-inch-thick slices

  ½ cup tomato paste (a 6-ounce can)

  ½ teaspoon allspice

  1 pound smoked fresh mozzarella, in ½-inch-thick slices

  6 to 8 tablespoons sour cream

  ½ pound Gruyère cheese, sliced with a cheese plane

  ½ cup crème fraîche

  6 to 8 small sprigs fresh basil

  METHOD

  Slice the eggplants crosswise into ½-inch-thick slices and sprinkle a smidgen of salt on each side as you do so, laying them on top of a double thickness of paper towels. Place a second layer of paper towels on the top of the salted pieces. Weigh them down with a heavy bowl or some canned goods set on a large cutting board and let them sit for 30 minutes. (This will remove any bitterness from the flesh and compress the slices so that they will not absorb too much oil during sautéing.)

  Set up your breading station. Pour the milk into a shallow container such as a pie plate. Mix the flour with the marjoram, basil, and a pinch (1/16 teaspoon) ground black pepper and spread the mixture on a plate or flat work surface. Pour the egg wash into a separate shallow container. Have a large sheet of waxed paper spread out nearby on which to lay the coated eggplant. Dip each slice of eggplant into the milk and then into the flour. Allow any excess flour to fall away, then dip into the beaten eggs and into the millet flour or crumbs, and place the coated eggplant on the waxed paper. Repeat for each slice of eggplant. Let the coated slices air dry for 30 minutes.

  While the eggplant is air drying, mix the pulverized rosemary, salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper in a small bowl. Rub the portobello mushrooms with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the oil, and rub some of the rosemary mixture into all surfaces of them. Melt the butter in 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large sauté pan, reserving the rest of the oil. When the oil begins to shimmer, sauté each side of the rubbed portobellos, curved side down first, until they release their juices, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer the portobellos to a utility platter and pour the juices into a small heatproof bowl.

  To the same pan add another tablespoon of oil and sauté the shallots, garlic, and white mushrooms over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until the mushrooms begin to give up their juices but are still retaining their shape, about 5 to 8 minutes. Then, using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the white mushrooms to a small plate (to let cool to room temperature) and transfer the garlic, shallots, and pan juices to the bowl that contains the juices from the portobellos.

  When the coated eggplant has air dried, clean out the sauté pan and heat enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan to a depth of about 1/16 of an inch (about 2 to 3 tablespoons) over medium-high heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the slices of coated eggplant, leaving undisturbed for the first 2 minutes or so to let the coating integrate into the surface of the eggplant and to prevent “crusting off” of the breading. Flip the eggplant slices and cook the other side undisturbed in the same way, adding oil as needed, then transfer to paper towels to drain. Cook the eggplant this way in batches, wiping out the sauté pan between batches and replenishing with fresh oil for each new batch (about 3 batches in a 14-inch pan).

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Mix the tomato paste and allspice into the bowl that contains the mushroom juices, garlic, and shallots.

  Assemble each napoleon in a wide CorningWare or Pyrex baking dish such as a 10-inch-by-12-inch-by-2-inch-deep lasagna dish, greased with butter. The layering sequence from bottom to top for each napoleon is one portobello, a slice of mozzarella, and a slice of eggplant, topped by a tablespoon of tomato-paste mixture, 4 or 5 slices of white mushrooms, a second slice of eggplant, a tablespoon of sour cream, then 1 teaspoon more of the tomato-paste mixture and two 2-by-4-inch pieces of Gruyère. (If you have additional eggplant, place it on a baking sheet.) Cover the dish with foil and bake until the eggplant is cooked through, the cheese is heated through, and the napoleons are set, about 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for 5 more minutes. (Bake the extra eggplant at the same time.)

  Remove from the oven and let the napoleons rest for 5 minutes.

  PRESENTATION

  Carefully place a napoleon in the center of each serving dish. Top with a dollop of crème fraîche and garnish with a sprig of basil. Serve extra eggplant on a platter as a supplement to the meal. This is delicious with a crisp chardonnay.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mr. Cupertino’s Proposal

  TINA WALKED UP the block past the school and the church and made the right through the skinny iron gate of the tiny yard of the rectory of Saint Joseph’s, bumping the latch with her hip to click it open because her hands were filled with a big pot of soup. She thought that the lawn could use a good weeding. When she was back at school, in the springtime, the nuns picked the good girls in the fifth grade to help out with the gardening and the good boys picked the weeds.

  She hit the buzzer with her elbow and peeked inside through the lacy curtains as Father DiTucci in his heavy-knit, black sweater and slippers shuffled his way down the hall to the door. He opened his hands wide when he saw her and beamed when she handed him the pot. He blessed her as she made the sign of the cross, then she rushed off to make her next delivery.

  Over at the Santaguidas’, Jeanie, the lady of the house and a mere slip of a girl to be mother to six children ranging in age from ten months to twelve and a half, was beside herself when Gia arrived unannounced, carrying a big tray with the roasted chicken, a Tupperware of gravy, mounds of risotto and green beans—enough for the whole family and then some, and just as the deadline for getting dinner started was looming. After Gia’s few words of explanation, Jeanie started laughing like she’d hit a number and invited Gia in for coffee while she tented the chicken with a big sheet of foil and set it to warming in the oven.

  Gia scooped the baby, Rosie, out of her high chair and snuggled her onto her ample lap. Two of the littler boys tussled at her feet, and the three-year-old pulled at her skirt and reached out her arms to be lifted up next to the baby. She told Jeanie to take her time with the coffee; Gia was in her glory.

  Tina was on her second stop. She carried a deep, oven-ready dish up the stoop to the Cappuccios’ front door and rang the bell. Mrs. Cappuccio was a nice old lady who lived in the house with her grandson, Johnny, whose mother and father had passed away some years back.

  Johnny opened the door. He was slim, on the tall side with gentle blue eyes, was a little quiet, but handsome, at least Tina thought so. The ball game was playing in the background.

  “Hi, Johnny.”

  “Hi, Tina.”

  Tina shyly offered him the dish. “This is for you and your grandmom. It’s a beef stew my aunt Angelina made. She’s a really good cook. You just have to stick it in the oven and it’s ready to go.”

  “Really. Wow. Thanks. It looks great. Tell Mrs. D’Angelo thanks, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Tina turned slowly and went down the steps. “Bye, Johnny.”

  Tina liked saying Johnny’s name; Johnny liked hearing her say it.

  “Bye.”

  Johnny backed in the door as Tina backed do
wn the street and they managed to keep their eyes on each other until Tina slipped around the corner.

  Over the next couple of hours, Angelina’s food spread around the neighborhood like electricity, until all that was left was the lasagna. Angelina recalled Dottie’s kindness from the day before and had it in mind for her specially. She put on her coat, cradled the lasagna dish, and headed across the street.

  “Angelina, what are you bringing?” Dottie asked as she opened the door.

  Angelina thrust the dish into her hands and smiled. “Dottie, you were so nice to bring me over that escarole and everything yesterday, so I baked you a little lasagna.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s so nice. You didn’t have to do that. How was the soup?”

  “It’s gone already.”

  “Oh, good. You want to come in?”

  “No, I got to get going, but thanks again, Dottie, so much.”

  “Okay, hon.” She looked out over Angelina’s shoulder. “Oh, Angelina, wait, come here. I have to introduce you,” Dottie said as she hurried down the steps, dish in hand.

  Angelina turned and saw an older man making his way down the street, reading a folded newspaper. He was gracefully balding, of average height and build, dressed plainly but tastefully, from brown leather wing-tip shoes to a pale blue Pima polo shirt and perfectly pressed herringbone trousers. He was tilting his reading glasses up and down as he walked, as if trying to find the perfect point of compromise between his desire to read the paper and his need to navigate the sidewalk without tripping or bumping into anything. He was so absorbed that he nearly overshot the stoop, then sensed he was being watched and looked up in time to notice the two ladies waiting to greet him.

  “Basil,” said Dottie. “I’d like to introduce you to someone.”